Was the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Fort Worth office a breeding ground for corruption? Or is this just a coincidence?

Phillip W. Offill Jr. (right) spent 15 years in the SEC’s Fort Worth office prosecuting financial fraudsters. Now the lawyer has been sentenced to eight years in prison for doing what he once denounced.

After going into private practice as a lawyer in Dallas, the investigation concludes, Barasch did some legal work for Stanford. The SEC has asked the State Bar of Texas to investigate that matter.

More recently, Barasch sought to represent billionaire Mark Cuban after the SEC accused him of insider trading, my Dallas Morning News colleagues Dave Michaels and Eric Torbenson discovered. They obtained an e-mail in which Barasch trashed Paul Coggins, the former U.S. attorney whom Cuban had hired as his lawyer.

The e-mail also touted Barasch’s insider ties. “I am friends with and helped promote two of the guys who signed the Complaint against Mark,” he wrote.